-Caveat Lector-
-----Original Message-----
From: FAIR [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 5:18 PM
To: FAIR-L
Subject: Newsweek Exposes Use of Child Soldiers Abroad, But Turns Blind Eye
to U.S.
FAIR-L
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and activism
ACTION ALERT:
Newsweek Exposes Use of Child Soldiers Abroad, But Turns Blind Eye to U.S.
May 8, 2002
Newsweek's May 13 issue features a story about the use of child soldiers
and "how the international community can roll back the growing
exploitation of children in war," but does not mention the United States'
own recruitment of child soldiers, nor the U.S.'s obstruction of
international efforts to curb the practice.
The centerpiece of the article, "Voices of the Children: 'We beat and
killed people…'," is a series of heart-wrenching interviews with four
child veterans from Sierra Leone. Newsweek presents the boys' stories as
part of its coverage of the United Nations' Special Session on Children, a
conference where the U.N. will address "how to muster the will to enforce
longstanding international conventions and three new resolutions on
children and armed conflict." Graphic and passionately written, the
article seems meant to raise awareness about how kids "have become the
cannon fodder of choice," and describes the experiences of child soldiers
of Sierra Leone as a lesson in "the unthinkable inhumanity of those who
coerced them into combat."
The moral outrage that Newsweek brings to the story of child soldiers
makes its omission of the U.S. role all the more bizarre.
The U.S. is one of only two countries in the world-- the other being
Somalia-- not to have ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the
Child (CRC), the primary legal instrument available to stop the use of
child soldiers. Along with the Geneva Conventions, the CRC makes it
illegal for militaries to enlist people under the age of 15. Newsweek
doesn't mention the CRC by name, but it is certainly among the measures
the magazine is referring to when it says the U.N. must "muster the will
to enforce" existing laws.
Even though it has not ratified the CRC, the U.S. has worked to water down
an Optional Protocol to the Convention which raises the minimum age for
combat service to 18. Originally, the Protocol sought to raise the age for
"voluntary recruitment" to 18 as well, a move endorsed by human and
children's rights groups as crucial for building a real global ban on
child combat. But the U.S. recruits soldiers at 17. After six years of
heavy pressure from the U.S. and U.K. (which also recruits minors), the
Protocol was negotiated to allow militaries recruit children as young as
16 (London Times, 2/13/02).
None of this information is included in the Newsweek article. A table and
map accompanying the article show "where the young soldiers are," listing
36 countries that are currently using people under the age of 18 as
soldiers in combat. By not including countries that recruit minors, but
are not currently using them in combat, Newsweek created a graphic that
excluded the U.S. and the U.K., countries which also in fact have "young
soldiers."
The U.S.'s attempts to weaken the CRC have become a key issue for rights
groups (Human Rights Watch press release, 5/7/02), yet the only time the
Newsweek article mentions the U.S. is to note that the chief prosecutor
for the Sierra Leone War Crimes Tribunal is American.
The magazine's silence on the U.S. role becomes most deafening, however,
as the article wraps up by recommending that "the West" make aid to the
developing world conditional on compliance with child rights conventions.
"Finally," writes Newsweek, "the victimized societies need to look inward,
to ask themselves hard questions about what they have done to encourage
the treatment of people as commodities. A nation like Sierra Leone will
cheat itself if it expects foreigners alone to deliver a cure." It's too
bad Newsweek's coverage won't prompt American readers to ask those hard
questions about their own government's role in the exploitation of child
soldiers.
ACTION: Please encourage Newsweek to return to the important issue of
child soldiers, but next time with an article that tells the whole story,
including the U.S. government's role in the controversy.
CONTACT:
Newsweek
Phone: (212) 445-4000
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To send feedback using Newsweek's web form, go to:
http://www.msnbc.com/modules/Newsweek/feedback/nwfeedback.asp?cp1=1
As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if
you maintain a polite tone. Please cc [EMAIL PROTECTED] with your
correspondence.
Read the full Newsweek article:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/746985.asp?cp1=1
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